Indian stock markets opened today in a special Muhurat trading session to mark the auspicious occasion of Diwali. Within minutes of trading, the benchmark Sensex lost 88.54 points to hit the day's low of 32,495.81 whereas Nifty lost 26.4 points and fell below 10,200.

The key equity index Sensex opened marginally higher while the broader Nifty started flat on the first trading day of the Samvat 2074. Indian stock markets opened today in a special Muhurat trading session to mark the auspicious occasion of Diwali. BSE Sensex gained 72.4 points or 0.22% 32,656.75 points and NSE Nifty lost 0.5 points to begin at 10,210.35 points. Shares of Bharti Airtel and Reliance Industries were the top gainers in the opening minutes of trade. The stock of Reliance Industries jumped 0.87% to hit the fresh all-time high of Rs 921.75 on BSE.

Within minutes of trading, the benchmark Sensex lost 88.54 points to hit the day’s low of 32,495.81 whereas 50-share indicator Nifty lost 26.4 points and fell below 10,200 level to 10,184.45 points. Other than Airtel, shares of Lupin, M&M, Infosys, and State Bank of India were the major gainer on Sensex, advanced up to 0.64% while ICICI Bank, Coal India, Tata Motors, and ONGC lost up to 1.3%. The stocks of heavyweight companies such as ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank contributed the most to the down surge. Collectively these two shares alone shaved off about 44 points while Bharti Airtel and RIL helped to trim the losses.

This session is held more from an auspicious standpoint than anything else, for a lot of the business communities, the new financial year begins on Diwali. The first order placed on this day which is generally a buy order is seen as Shagun for the forthcoming year. The stock markets still try and factor in global cues during this session as they realize normal markets are closed for a couple of sessions. It’s generally not prudent to trade in this session as activity can be volatile on the back of reduced liquidity, said Nikhil Kamath, Co-Founder and Head of Trading, Zerodha.

Sensex and Nifty ended marginally lower on the last trading day of Samvat 2073 ahead of the Muhurat trading. BSE Sensex lost 24.81 points to settle at 32,584.35 points and NSE Nifty shaved off 23.6 points to close at 10,210.85 points. During the day, both the benchmark indices traded lower in line with the opening losses due to the slump in most of the banking sector stocks led by Axis Bank. But value buying in the shares of the market cap leader Reliance Industries and Power Grid helped to trim the losses. The 30-share barometer Sensex settled flat witnessing a contrary trade in which a 200-point rise provided by Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, and ITC was offset by the plunge in shares of Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, and SBI.